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129 Wash. 2d 84

Iwai v. State

Washington Supreme Court

Decided May 9, 1996

Washington Supreme Court · decided 1996-05-09

Relies on 100 Wash. 2d 39 - Pimentel v. Roundup Company · 123 Wash. 2d 649 - Ingersoll v. DeBartolo, Inc. · 116 Wash. 2d 452 - Wiltse v. Albertson's Inc.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1996-05-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently July 2015 · most notably Nivens v. 7-11 Hoagy's Corner (1997), Iwai v. State (1996)

1 federal appellate · 22 state decisions

140199620002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Guy, J.

¶1(concurring and dissenting) — As to part I of the majority opinion, I fully concur. As to part II, I dissent to the portion of the opinion that holds a landlord liable without actual or constructive notice of a dangerous condition and a reasonable time for repair.

¶2The majority opinion would hold a landlord liable for any dangerous condition on his or her land that is reasonably foreseeable. Authority for this important change in *104liability law cited by the majority is Pimentel v. Roundup Co., 100 Wn.2d 39, 666 P.2d 888 (1983) and Wiltse v. Albertson’s Inc., 116 Wn.2d 452, 805 P.2d 793 (1991). In both of these cases, the defendants were self-service stores and the injuries were caused by hazards which were inherent in the nature of the business or mode of operation and within areas where customers served themselves. Pimenteland Wiltsewere cited as authority in Ingersoll v. De-Bartolo, Inc., 123 Wn.2d 649, 654, 869 P.2d 1014 (1994) where the court declared, "There must be a relation between the hazardous condition and the self-service mode of operation of the business.” The self-service considerations of Pimenteland Wiltsewere limited to the interior of the store or where customers service themselves. In Ingersoll, the court pointed out;

We note that even if the injury does occur in the self-service department of a store, this alone does not compel application of the Pimentelrule. Self-service has become the norm throughout many stores. However, the Pimentelrule does not apply to the entire area of the store in which customers serve themselves. Rather, it applies if the unsafe condition causing the injury is "continuous or foreseeahly inherent in the nature of the business or mode of operation.”

¶3Ingersoll, 123 Wn.2d at 653-54 (quoting Wiltse, 116 Wn.2d at 461).

¶4Nothing in these cited cases extends the Pimentelexception to the general rule that a landlord must have actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition and a reasonable opportunity for repair beyond the self-service area of a store and into a parking lot. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343 (1965), entitled Dangerous Conditions Known to or Discoverable by Possessor, protects an invitee without making the landlord an insurer against unknown defects on his or her land.

¶5*105Durham, C.J., Madsen, J., and Pekelis, J. Pro Tern., concur with Guy, J.

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